I say ‘Allah,’ you say ‘God,’ dammit!

At St. Francis Xavier Church on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, parishioners pray to God using the Malay word 'Allah,' even though the Malaysian government has banned use of the word by non-Muslims. The government argues that letting Malayaia's two million Catholics call their God 'Allah' could confuse young, unsuspecting, rural Muslims, perhaps even misleading them to convert. The BBC reports that the church has asked the Malaysian High Court to rule that it can use the local term. [Hat tip:  BT] ...

The death of Pluto and how not to teach science

When Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hyden Planetarium, re-categorized Pluto as one of many small, icy, irregularly orbiting bodies at the outer edge of the solar system, he got hate mail from third graders. As recounted in an interview with D.J. Grothe of The Skeptical Inquirer magazine, the episode says a lot about what's wrong with the way we teach science in grade school. [Hat tip: Silas.] ...

What small business tax? – dissent

Via Twitter, David MacRury objects to my contention that the benefits of Liberal and Tory promises to trim the corporate tax rate on the first $400,00 of taxable business income "wouldn’t flow exclusively—or even mainly—to small businesses, or even to companies with small profits."

You're being misleading- the majority of the benefit goes to small business.

How to raise generous children

A US newspaper chain examines the question, and also identifies the most generous class of Americans....

Small business tax? What small business tax?

Stephen McNeil and Rodney MacDonald both promise to cut the Small Business Tax. McNeil would slash it from five percent to one percent immediately. McDonald would cut it from five to 2.5 percent over three years, starting in 2011.

There's one big problem with these promises. Nova Scotia doesn't have a Small Business Tax. It does have a corporate income tax, and that tax is progressive. It levies a lower rate on the first $400,000 of taxable income, and it's this rate the Liberals and the Tories would cut. The benefits of these cuts wouldn't  flow exclusively—or even mainly—to small businesses, or even to companies with small profits.

Election signs

Contrary to popular belief, the busiest section of  Nova Scotia highway awaiting twinning is not Route 101 or 103, but Route 125, the Sydney Bypass. This circumferential  highway connects the communities of industrial Cape Breton. It runs from the TransCanada 105 at Sydney Mines to the Sydney-Glace Bay Highway. Its most heavily travelled section includes a roughly four-kilometer stretch that narrows inexplicably and dangerously to two lanes at Ball's Creek, before widening to four lanes at the Coxheath interchange. From time to time, seemingly always in election years, heavy equipment appears and spends a few weeks removing trees or scruffing overburden, only...

The debate – on emergency rooms

On Wednesday's Information Morning (Halifax edition), St. FX political scientist Jim Bickerton observed that all three candidates in Tuesday's debate stuck to pre-scripted talking points. Of course they did, replied co-panelist Ralph Surette. Nova Scotia's pathological political culture makes honest discussion of issues almost impossible. In health care, for example, no one can say out loud what everyone knows, that some small hospital emergency rooms ought to be closed permanently. We'd be crucify them on the spot. [I am paraphrasing from memory, and would gladly link to the discussion, but the good folks at Information Morning have not posted it online.] Marillia Stephenson talks sense in this morning's Herald on the leaders' pandering to rural hospital emergency rooms. She, too, points out what all three leaders already know—that many emergency rooms probably should close. Moneyquote:

Just a thought…

Power Promotional Concepts announced yesterday that Paul McCartney will play the Halifax Commons on Saturday, July 11. Is there nothing David Rodenhiser can do to stop this?...

The Debate – on the environment

There are several grounds for opposing Darrell Dexter's promise to cut the HST on home electrical bills.

• It will use taxpayers' dollars to give ratepayers the illusion they are protected from higher energy costs, when higher energy costs are a reality Nova Scotians must adjust to.
• It will subsidize our dirtiest form of energy, coal-fired electricity. (Seventy-five percent of our electricity comes from burning coal, the mother of all greenhouse gas sources.)
• It will go indiscriminately to all subscribers. A case can be made for subsidizing the energy costs of our poorest citizens, who have the least capacity to save on energy costs. But why is Dexter so keen on subsidizing the power bills of John Risley, John Bragg, and David Sobey? This is nuts.

More ominously, the NDP's home electrical subsidy bespeaks a poll-driven policy formation that bodes ill for Nova Scotia. At a time when we are finally witnessing real political leadership in the US, Dexter is showing the opposite: followership.